Mount Zion (Was) in the Midst of the Dwelling of the Earth”

—translator’s note.

5 See B. Mazar, The Mountain of the Lord (Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1975); C. T. R. Hayward, The Jewish Temple (London-New York: Routledge, 1996). Cf. also n. 8 below.

6 See Y. Shapira, El giv`at halevonah [To the hill of frankincense] (Yitshar: Agudat el Har Hamor, 1999); id. and Y. Pel’i, El Har Hamor [To the mountain of myrrh] (Yitshar: Agudat el Har Hamor, 1997); Y. Ezion, Bein levanon le-levanon: Le-fesher qilelat ha-damim shel hitvardut ha-orqim (Ofrah: published by the author, 1999). The Targum on Song 3:6 connects the Temple with “the mountain of myrrh…the hill of frankincense.” The Samaritans identified Mount Moriah with Mount Gerizim. The name “Temple Mount” reflects the vision of destruction described in Mic 3:12, dating from the time of King Hezekiah: “Assuredly because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins and the Temple Mount [har habayit] a shrine in the woods” (cf. Jer 26:18). It refers to the sacred mountain following the destruction; later, when the Jews no longer had the holy city within their reach (following the Bar-Kokhba rebellion), it provided a poignant description of what was lacking rather than what actually existed. The original source for the name was the prophetic usage har beit adonai (Isa 2:2), “the Mount of the Lord’s house”; it was shortened after the destruction by its dissociation from God’s name. The term bayit (house) is used in post-exilic rabbinic texts to describe the extent of the tragedy: “The reticence of Rabbi Zachariah ben Avqulos destroyed our house, burned our sanctuary and exiled us from our land” (b Git. 56a); cf. b. Ber. 3a: “Woe to the sons, for on account of their sins I destroyed My house, burned My sanctuary, and exiled them among the nations of the world.” On the historical context of those statements and the changing view of whom to blame for the destruction, see Yisrael Yaakov Yuval, “The myth of the exile from the Land—Jewish time and Christian time,” Alpayyim 29 (2005), pp. 11-12 (Hebrew).

7 On David’s tomb, whose identity as such developed first in Christian myth and was later adopted by the Jewish tradition, see Ora Limor, “David’s tomb on Mount Zion: on the sources of a tradition,” in D. Jacoby and Y. Tzafrir, eds., Jews, Samaritans, and Christians in Byzantine Palestine (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 1988), pp. 11-23 (Hebrew); cf. Israel Jacob Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages; trans. from the Hebrew by Barbara Harshav and Jonathan Chipman (Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 2006), pp. 23-24; and see below, text at n. 67.

8 Much has been written on Mount Zion in its various historical, literary, and archaeological contexts. See Y. Tzafrir, Zion – the southwestern hill and its place in the development of Jerusalem during the Byzantine period, (doctoral dissertation, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 1975), pp. 6-7; Yaron Z. Eliav, Har le-lo bayit: har ha-bayit mi-hurban bayit sheini ve-ad emza ha-me’ah ha-hamishit, mezi’ut ve-idei`ah (doctoral dissertation, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 1999) (in English as: God's Mountain. The Temple Mount in Time, Place, and Memory (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. In his introduction, Eliav maintains that only after the Temple had been destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE did the Temple Mount in Jerusalem became an important concept invested with religious significance. He notes that the term har habayit (“Temple Mount”) as a routine designation for the site of the no-longer-extant temple took shape only in the first century, though it is based on an ancient tradition (id., p. 10). Eliav there also reviews the complex relationship between mountain and temple and discusses the various names used for Mount Moriah, Mount Zion, and the Temple Mount at various times. The dissertation contains a thorough bibliography on each of these sites.

9 For background on the nature of the controversy over sacred time and sacred space within the Jewish world of the second century BCE, see R. Elior, The Three Temples: On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism, trans. from the Hebrew by David Louvish (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004) (originally: Miqdash u-merkavah, kohanim u-mal’akhim, heikhal ve-heikhalot ba-mistiqah ha-yehudit ha-qedumah [Temple and Chariot, Priests and Angels, Sanctuary and Heavenly Sanctuaries in Early Jewish Mysticism] [Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2002]); id., Zikkaron u-neshiyah: qolot nishkahim u-megillot mesapperot sodah shel sifriyyat ha-megillot [Remembrance and forgetting: forgotten voices and scrolls revealing the mystery of the library of the scrolls] (forthcoming: Van Leer ).

10 On Chronicles and the time of its composition, see S. Japhet, “Emunot ve-de`ot be-sefer divrei ha-yamim” (doctoral dissertation, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 1973) (in English as: The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought, trans. Anna Barber [Frankfurt-am-Main and New York: P. Lang, 1989]); id., I and II Chronicles: A Commentary (Louisville KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993); W. Riley, King and Cultus in Chronicles: Worship and the Reinterpretation of History (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993).

11 2 Chr 3:1. (The translation is from the Old Jewish Publication Society version [OJPS] [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1917], which captures the sense of MT; NJPS translates in accord with the emendation next described.) MT here appears corrupt and should be emended per LXX: “And Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared to his father David, in the place which David had prepared in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite” (The Apostles Bible: A Modern English Translation of the Greek Septuagint, ed. Paul W. Esposito [based on Brenton trans., 1851] [http://www.apostlesbible.com]). Other ancient translations read “in the place which David had prepared in the threshing floor” or “the threshing floor of Aronah.” See Y. Zackowitz, David (Jerusalem: Yad Yitshaq Ben-Zvi, 1995), p. 139; B. Mazar, “The city of David and Mount Zion”, in Jerusalem through the ages (publ. Y. Aviram: Society for the study of the land of Israel) (Jerusalem, 1969), pp. 1-11 (Hebrew). On the tradition regarding the altar built by David in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite (or Arnia or Arona), see 2 Sam 24:18-25; 1 Chr 21:15, 18-30. No place at all is mentioned in the parallel tradition in 1 Kings 6 regarding the construction of Solomon’s Temple. The account in 1 Kgs 8 of the dedication of the Temple suggests a contrast between Jerusalem and the City of David, that is, Zion: “Then Solomon convoked the elders of Israel—all the heads of the tribes…—before King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from the city of David, that is, Zion” (1 Kgs 8:1). Another interesting tradition regarding the “place of Aronah,” connected to burnt offerings by the priestly dynasty of Enoch son of Jared, chosen by God, appears in 2 En. 21 and 23 (Hebrew version). Pirqei Derabbi Eliezer, a midrash that polemicizes against ancient priestly traditions, records a late tradition that “the entrance to the Garden of Eden is adjacent to Mount Moriah” (23:3).

12 Apostle’s Bible (above, n. 11).

13 See above, n. 10. Zion is mentioned hundreds of times in the Hebrew Bible, especially in the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Zechariah, Psalms, and Lamentations.

14 2 Sam 5:7; 1 Kgs 8:1; 1 Chr 11:5; 2 Chr 5:2.

15 2 Kgs 19:31 and parallel in Isa 37:32. Cf.:" Zion, the Temple Mount, is the visible form, the" incarnation," so to speak, of the sacred story of YHWH's commitment to rescue those loyal to Him; it is the Temple that the psalmist and his circle "form an image" of God's care for His worshipers" .J. D. Levenson, "The Jerusalem Temple in Devotional and Visionary Experience", Jewish SpiritualityFrom the Bible through the Middle Ages, (ed. A. Green), Crossroad: New York 1986, 32-61, quote in p. 47

16 Isa 35:10; cf. 51:11 and see 52:1, 7; 4:3-5.

17 Obad 1:21; cf. “I will grant triumph in Zion to Israel, in whom I glory” (Isa 46:13).

18 Joel 4:17; cf. 4:21—“And the Lord shall dwell in Zion”; 3:5—“for there shall be a remnant on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, as the Lord promised.”

19 Joel 2:1; cf. 3:5 and 4:16.

20 Ps 48:2-3; the psalm alludes to Isaiah’s words: “I will sit in the mount of assembly, on the summit of Zaphon [OJPS: the uppermost parts of the north]” (Isa 14:13).

21 Ps 78:68; cf. “To adorn the site of My Sanctuary… ‘City of the Lord, Zion of the Holy One of Israel’” (Isa 60:13-14). Cf. also Isa 62:1, 11.

22 Ps 2:6; cf. Ps 48:12; 74:2; 125:1.

23 Ps 20:3.

24 The cosmic mountain traditions that portray a high place where heaven and earth meet and the divine manifests itself on earth often note a correspondence between the mountain and a sanctuary (see Clifford and Clements, above, n. 4). The biblical traditions, however, make no such specific reference.

25 Lam 5:18; cf. Jer 26:18; Lam. Rab. 5:18 (Buber 80a); Sifrei Devarim 43 (Finkelstein, p. 95); b. Mak. 24b.

26 See, e.g., “bring us to Zion Your city in song; to Jerusalem Your holy house in eternal joy”; “Have mercy, our God, on us and on Israel Your people; on Jerusalem Your city; on Zion, dwelling place of Your glory; on Your sanctuary and Your habitation; on your sanctum; and on the great and holy house called by Your Name…bring us near to the days of the Messiah and the building of the Temple.” (From the blessing after meals and the blessing Nahem, added to the standard prayers on the Ninth of Ab, the day commemorating the destruction of the first and second temples.

27 On the meaning of this term, see Community Rule 1:19-21; 2:2-4; 5:1-3, 5, 8; Damascus Document 3:1, 4-21; 3:4; 5:5. (Except as otherwise noted, quotations from the Dead Sea Scrolls are taken from Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (New York: Penguin Books, 1997). On the significance of the tie between the Zadokite priests and the Sadducees, see Y. Sussmann, Heqer toledot ha-halakhah u-megillot midbar yehudah: hirhurim talmudiyyim rishonim le-or megillat miqtsat ma`aseh ha-torah [The history of halakhah and the Dead Sea Scrolls], Tarbits 59 (1990), pp. 11-64 (English abridgement in DJD X). On the significance of this priestly context in the literary history of Jewish mysticism, see R. Elior, The Three Temples (above, n. 9), pp. 24-28.

28 The Qumran version of Jubilees states: “[for] the Garden of Eden is sacred and every young shoot which is in its midst is a consecrated thing” DJD XXXV, Qumran cave 4, (ed.) J. Baumgarten, Oxford: Clarendon 1999, p. 70. On the Book of Jubilees, see above, n. 1. For an up-to-date study of Jubilees, including a comprehensive bibliography, see M. Segal, The book of Jubilees (doctoral dissertation, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 2004); M. Albani, J. Frey, and A. Lange, eds., Studies in the Book of Jubliees (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997).

29 Hymn 18 (formerly 14); Vermes p. 278. The hymn includes a detailed account of the Garden of Eden. The citation above, which lists seven types of tree, alludes to Isa 41:9.

30 “Garden of Eden”: see Jub. 8:29; cf. 2 En. 5:3; “Garden of Righteousness”: see 1 En. 77:3; “Eternal Plantation”: see Thanksgiving Scroll, Hymn 18 (formerly 14), Vermes, p. 278 (“everlasting Plant”; “Fountain of Life”: see id. Vermes, p. 279 (“well-spring of life”) On Garden of Truth, see below, n. 47. [In Licht’s Hebrew edition, see Hymn 16, page 8, lines 6 and 12.)

31 1 Enoch 14:11; cf. Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, ed. Carol Newsom (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), p. 303. On the tradition of the chariot, see id., pp. 1-80 and cf. R. Elior, The Three Temples (above, n. 9), pp. 63-81_____.

32 1 En. 75:3-4.

33 Vermes, p. 328.

34 4Q405 20–21–22, lines 6–14; see Newsom, Song of the Sabbath Sacrifices (above, n. 31), pp. 303–21 for the Hebrew text, discussion, and translation. Translation by the present author, based on the translations of David Halperin, The Faces of the Chariot (Tubingen: J.C. B. Mohr, 1988), pp. 52, 524–25; J. Strugnell, “The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran-4Q Serek Sirot Olat hassabat,” Congress Volume: Oxford, 1959 (VTSup 7; Leiden: Brill, 1959–60), pp. 318–45. and Lawrence H. Schiffman, “Merkavah Speculation at Qumran: The 4QSerekh Shirot Olat Ha-Shabat,” in Mystics, Philosophers and Politics, Essays in Jewish Intellectual History in Honor of Alexander Altmann, ed. J. Reinharz and D. Swetschinski (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1982), pp. 15–47. The unique poetic Hebrew syntax and mystical content makes this text particularly hard to translate; it can therefore be rendered in more than one way.

35 On holy trees and fragrant trees in the Garden of Eden, which are associated with the sacred tradition of Temple incense, see 1 Enoch 24-32 and 17-18; cf. 2 Enoch 5:1-4; Jubilees 3:12, 27.

36 For both terms, see Hymn 18 (formerly 14),,Vermes, pp. 278-279) (“mysterious fountain” and “well-spring of life”).(Hymn 16 in Licht.)

37 On the Psalms Scroll from Qumran and the cycle of songs associated with the cycle of sacrifices, see J. A. Sanders, “The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11(11QPs) col. xxvii:2-11,” DJD IV (Oxford: Clarendon: 1965), pp. 48, 91-93. Cf. R. Elior, The Three Temple, pp. 50-55

38 See Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (above, n. 31), Introduction, and cf. Leah. Mazor, “The connection between the Garden of Eden and the Temple, in Near eastern studies annual 13 (Jerusalem, 2002) (Hebrew); M Himmelfarb, “The Temple and the Garden of Eden in Ezekiel, The Book of Watchers and the Wisdom of Ben Sira,” in Sacred Places and Profane Spaces ( above, n. 2 ), pp.63-78.

1. 
   39 Jub. 1:17, 28-29 (emphasis supplied). For up-to-date studies of Jubilees, see Segal, Jubilees (above, n. 28) and Albani, Frey, and Lange, Studies (above, n. 28). Although Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Pentateuch itself, it is referred to explicitly (as in the quotation above) in Jubilees’ retelling of the stories of Genesis and the first half of Exodus. The Dead Sea Scrolls version of Jubilees contains a slightly different reading form the one quoted above: “Until my sanctuary is built [among them for all the ages of eternity. The Lord will appear in the sight of] all; and [all] will know [that I am the God of Israel, father of all Jacob's [children], and king [on Mount Zion for all the ages of eternity; Then Zion and Jerusa]le[m will be holy]”. (DJD XIII, Qumran Cave 4,VIII: Parabiblical Texts, part 1, ed. H.Attridge, J. Vanderkam et.al. Oxford:Clarendon 1994, pp. 11-12).
   

40 Jub. 4:26.

41 1 En. 26:1-3. On Enoch and his heavenly journeya, cf. G. W. Nickelsburg 1 Enoch: A Commentary on the book of 1 Enoch chapters 1-36; 81-108, : (ed.) K. Baltzer, Minneapolis 2001, pp. 279-280; J. C. Vanderkam, Enoch and the Growth of Apocalyptic Tradition, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Monograph Series, 16, Washington, D.C. 1984; J. C. Vanderkam, Enoch: A Man for All Generations, 1995; James L. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible, Cambridge 1988, pp. 176-177; Rachel Elior, The Three Temples (above, p. 9), pp. 88-110.

42 Jub. 8:19. Cf. 2 En. 71:35-36 in Charlesworth; 23: 45-46 in Kahana. On the meaning of the idea of “navel of the earth,” see S. Terrien, 'The Omphalos Myth and Hebrew Religion', Vetus Testamentum, 20 (1970), pp. 315-338; Y. Zeligman, “Jerusalem in Hellenistic Jewish thought”, in Yehudah and Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Hahevrah lehaqirat erets yisra’el va`atiqotehah, 1957) (Hebrew), pp. 192-208; Sh. Talmon, “The navel of the earth and the comparative system”, Tarbits 45 (1976), pp. 163-177 (Hebrew).

43 1 En. 14:10-11.

44 1 En. 71:5-7; cf. 1 En. 14:8-23 and 25:3; see also above, n. 24 and below, n. 47.

45 See 1 En. chapters 24-32 and 17-18; cf. 2 Enoch 5:1-8.

46 Jub. 3:12, 3:27, 29; 4:23-26; 8:19.

47 See 1 En. chapters 24-36. For “garden of righteousness,” see 1 En. 77:3. On “garden of truth” see below, n.48.

48 4Q209, Frag. 23:9, E. J.C. Tigchelaar and F. Garcia Martinez, "209.4QAstronomical Enoch ar"[in P. Alexander et al. (eds.) Qumran Cave 4 XXVI Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXVI, Oxford: Clarendon 2001, p.159. That is the name used for the Garden of Eden in the Aramaic Enoch found at Qumran. In the Hebrew translation, the Aramaic pardes qushta is rendered as gan hatsedeq; in English it is the “garden of righteousness” (Charlesworth, vol. 1, p. 56). In the Palestinian Aramaic translation of Genesis the verse “Enoch walked with God” (5:22) is rendered ufelah bequshta (“[Enoch] served with righteousness”).

49 See M. Zipor, The Septuagint on Genesis (Ramat-Gan, 2006) (Hebrew), p. 81; J. A. L. Lee, A Lexical Study of the Septuagint Version of the Pentateuch [SCS 14] 1983, pp. 53-56.

50 Community Rule 11:8 (Vermes p. 115).

51 See 1 En. 24:3-6; 29:2; 30:2-3; 31:1-2; 32:1-6; 2 En. 5:1-4 in Kahana; 8:1-8 in Charlesworth; R. Elior, The Three Temples (above, n. 9), pp. 128, 180.

52 1 En. 14:8-25; see above, n. 40; J. Vanderkam , Enoch :Man for Generations, Columbia: South Carolina 1995; J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976). “Voice of the cherubim” (v. 18) is per the translation in Charlesworth; the word rendered “voice” has been translated in other ways, including “vision.”

53 Trans. per DJD XXX, p. 44. See the Vision of the Chariot, Ezek. 1 and 10:9-19; cf. the Qumran version of Ezekiel, which includes the word “chariot” omitted in MT. DJD XXX, Qumran Cave 4.XXI: Parabiblical Texts, Part 4Pseudo-prophetic Texts, ed. D. Dimant and J. Strugnell (Oxford: Clarendon, 2001), p.42.

54 1 Chr 28:18 (OJPS).

55 Community Rule 11:7-9 (Vermes, p. 115) . In my book The Three Temples (above, n. 9), I consider the priestly chariot tradition at length.

56 See 1 En. chapters 1-36; Jub. 4:17-20. See also above, n. 51 and cf. Rachel Elior, “You have chosen Enoch from among men,” in On creation and re-creation in Jewish thought: festschrift for Joseph Dan, ed. Rachel Elior and Peter Schäfer (Tubingen, 2005), pp. 15-64 (Hebrew). Jubilees chapter 4 considers the biblical verse that is the point of departure for the Enoch tradition—“Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, for God took him” (Gen 5:24) and, interpreting “walked” in a literal sense, states that Enoch spend three hundred years with God’s angels. The Qumran version of Jubilees has the angel of the presence refer to “Enoch, after we taught him six Jubilee of years...The earth among the sons of mankind and he testified against all of them and also against the watchers. And he wrote all the sky and the paths of their host and the [mon]ths so that the righteous should not err (4Q227; DJD XIII p. 174); see Milik. Enoch (above, n. 51), p. 12. The Septuagint renders “And Enoch was well-pleasing to God, and was not found, for God translated him” (Apostles Bible [above, n. 11]).

57 1 En. 26:2-3. On navel of the earth, see above, n. 41. Rabbinic midrash preserves traditions about the holy mountain as the navel of the earth, situated at center of concentric circles of increasing holiness: “The Land of Israel is situated at the center of the world, and Jerusalem at the center of the Land of Israel, the Temple at the center of Jerusalem, the sanctuary at the center of the Temple, and ark at the center of the sanctuary, and the foundation stone [even ha-shetiyah] before the sanctuary, on which the world is founded” (Tanh. Qedoshim 10). On the foundation stone at the center of the Temple, cf. “From the foundation stone the world was created” (b. Yoma 54b). (M. Yoma 5:2 teaches that in the Second Temple, the foundation stone was the replacement for the ark-cover, the ark, and the cherubim.)

58 Thus Milik, the editor of the Aramaic Book of Enoch found at Qumran; see Milik, The Books of Enoch (above, n. 51), pp. 37-38, n. 3. Others disagree with him, for example: “In short, there is a wealth of suggestive possibilities and an acute lack of decisive evidence. The attempt to clarify Enoch’s journey from a traditional-historical viewpoint has hitherto had very limited success, and progress in this area is unlikely without new discoveries." Kelley Coblentz Bautch, The Study of the Geography of 1 Enoch, "No one has seen what I have seen" (Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2003), p. 6,

59 1 En. 75:3-9; Jub. 4:17-18; 50:1-4.

60 On Jubilees and the seven-based cycles of time observed from the days of Enoch and Noah until the time of Abraham and his descendants, see Elior, The Three Temples (above, n. 9), pp. 6-29, 82-87.

61 Jub. 8:19.

62 See 11QPs col. xxvii:2-1: DJD IV: The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11(11QPs), ed. J. A. Sanders, Oxford: Clarendon, 1965, pp 91-93. See also S. Talmon, “The annual calendar of the community” Qadmoniyot 30,2 (114) (1998), pp. 105-114 (Hebrew); Elior The Three Temples (above, n. 9), pp. 29-60